


Kneazles, Baubles, and Other Frosted Things

by Ellerigby13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Falling In Love, Firewhiskey (Harry Potter), First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Professors, Team as Family, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: Clint inherits two unexpected things when he takes on the open Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts: a one-eyed half-kneazle that noses around his office all the live-long day, and a fifteen-year-old niece with a chip on her shoulder and absolutely no need for a professor-uncle figure in her life.He decidedly does not inherit the incredibly pretty Herbology teacher, but she's really nice to have around, too.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47
Collections: Darcyverse Secret Santa





	Kneazles, Baubles, and Other Frosted Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiwigirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwigirl/gifts).



> Merry Christmas to all, but especially kiwigirl! This fic will include trans!Kate Bishop, and a gently complicated relationship with her loving Uncle Clint. Though this fic does take inspiration from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, your well-meaning author does not share Rowling's transphobic views.
> 
> Thank you for being here, I hope you enjoy <3

Clint inherits a grand total of two surprises when he decides to take the Defense position across the pond at Hogwarts.

The first is a half-kneazle that, for some reason, has taken a particular attachment to the previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher’s office. This surprise is thankfully not as stressful as he’d expected, since Lucky (according to Headmistress Hill) does little more than poke her silver-streaked blonde snout out from around the curtains and occasionally hops into his lap for a good pet, and doesn’t shit anywhere noticeable in his new home.

The second surprise...well, she’s going to take some getting used to.

“You’ll look after Kate at school, Clint, won’t you?” his cousin Eleanor Bishop pleads, hands clasped tight around the shoulders of a niece he never knew he had, a lanky teenage girl with dark hair and heavily lined eyes made for rolling. He glances quickly at the train that’s about to start chugging to their shared destination and stutters out as much of a “yes” as his brain can put together right now.

“I’ll be fine, Mum,” Kate sighs, yanking her trunk up the first step onto the train. She still hasn’t looked Clint in the face. “She reckons I’ll be bullied for showing up in girls’ clothes this term. As if I haven’t already been bullied for every other reason these numpties can think of.”

“Please,” Eleanor is still mouthing at him, so Clint tries to make himself look more certain of himself with how firmly he nods at her, and hops onto the train with his own trunk before giving Kate a gentle nudge to the ribs.

Begrudgingly, she turns over her shoulder and pastes on a half-smile. “I love you, Mum. I’ll write you when I can.”

Clint can’t help but grin, at least until he bangs his knee directly into the corner of Kate’s trunk in front of him. “See?” he winces , rubbing at the leg of his jeans with his free hand. “The smile and wave never fails. Keeps a protective mom off  _ your  _ back while makin’ sure she’s not worried sick about you while you’re at school.”

Kate snorts, still trucking on forward. “I don’t need help keeping my ‘ _ mawm _ ’ off my back, Uncle C. Been doing it myself for damn near sixteen years already.”

“Sounds exhausting.” The stinging in his kneecap fades only marginally, but he continues behind her, peeking through the windows that don’t have their curtains drawn for an empty carriage. “Where’re we sitting, then?”

“We?” Kate scoffs, finally turning to lift her eyebrows at him. “My social life was shit  _ before  _ my long-lost American uncle decided to take up work at my school. If you don’t mind, Professor Barton...I’d kind of like to find my own car.”

_ Professor Barton _ . Ah.

“Yeah,” he says, pretending that his brand new teenage niece that he’d never known about until about an hour ago hasn’t just bummed him the fuck out by saying that she’s not interested in hanging out with him before they get to school.

In fairness, the train ride goes by pretty quickly. For all the shit everyone talks about British food, the snack cart has some pretty good eats, and the Scottish countryside flying past the window feels like a refreshment compared to the concrete and steel of Brooklyn. He takes the time to double-check his first-year lesson plans, jots notes into the corners of the page. When the train finally slows its way into the station at Hogsmeade, he watches the sea of dark robes flood out onto the platform before unloading his trunk from above. As the shorter heads make for a small fleet of boats, led by the groundskeeper Hagrid, and the taller heads file toward the thestral-drawn carriages a ways off the shore, he can’t pick out Kate in the crowd.

“Professor Barton?”

He must turn too quickly, because the short witch in the doorway holds up a hand in surrender, a tender smile glowing across her full lips. She is very Britishly pale, with dark hair tied up in a casual bun and wide blue eyes.

“Sorry - didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” he says quickly, and it is obviously a lie.

“I’m Darcy Lewis - the Herbology teacher? Professor Hill asked me to escort you to the castle.”

That’s right. When he’d heard the name ‘Professor Lewis,’ he’d imagined a white-haired old man with too-large glasses, a perpetual green apron, and crusted dirt under his fingernails. Darcy is...not at all that.

“Darcy,” he says, letting himself smile, too. “Thanks for comin’ to get me. Uh, Clint.” He offers her his hand and, to his surprise, she shakes it firmly.

“It’s no trouble at all. We’re very excited to have you here at the castle.” 

She offers him a gentlewomanly arm, which he takes because he’s not an uncouth animal, and lets himself be ushered through the train and onto the finally empty platform. As the train chugs back toward Kings Cross, he spots a small black cauldron that appears to be waiting for them on the other side of the tracks.

“Is that - ?”

“Oh yes,” Darcy says gleefully. “We’re doing this ‘Baba Yaga’ style tonight.” She lets his arm go - something airy in his chest seems to balloon up - and pulls her wand from a pocket on the inside of her robes, drawing a circle with it aimed at the cauldon. The little black pot swells up to about the size of a bus station bench. He reflexively holds his hand out to her to help her in, and then follows.

“Is this...your cauldron?”

“No,” she smiles, shifting so she can stretch her legs out from beneath her dress and her robes, kitten-heeled feet kicked up onto the bench beside him. “We’re borrowing it from Natasha, the Potions master and Head of Slytherin. You’ll like her.”

He reaches into his pocket to offer her some of the sweets he’d bought on the train. She doesn’t hesitate to pluck out the ones that she likes, and he’s positive, perfectly positive they’re going to be good friends.

* * *

For a new professor and an American, he’s accepted fairly quickly by the rest of the Hogwarts faculty. There’s Headmistress Maria Hill, who he’s only a tiny bit afraid of due to the rumors that in her Auror days she’d taken down about fifty Death Eater-adjacent cultists in one night. She makes him come up to her office every two weeks for tea, and they talk about his lesson plans, Lucky, and his niece. For being moderately scary, she’s also pretty nice.

Then there’s Natasha, who Darcy is very much right about. He can’t decide whether she or Hill is scarier, though he’s seen Nat’s disappointed teacher death stare much more frequently than Maria’s, and that’s enough to make him never  _ ever _ want to cross her. He’s fairly certain that half of Natasha’s male students (and a good dozen of her female ones) are in love with her, but from what he’s observed, she seems to be much more interested in Madam Valkyrie, the flying coach.

He spends some time with Bruce who teaches Muggle Studies and Steve who teaches History of Magic, but Nat and Darcy tend to wrangle him into whatever schemes they’re up to at the moment, at least when Slytherin and Hufflepuff aren’t playing each other in Quidditch.

He doesn’t see much of Kate apart from quick glances in the corridors, and even then she’s not often keen to stop and catch up with him. Comes with being an embarrassing uncle, he supposes. They don’t even have a full conversation until one evening in the early part of November, when he’s pretty sure his hand will fall off from correcting a mountain of second-year homework.

“Professor Barton?”

Kate steps into his office with dark circles under her eyes, her sweater and robes looking a little worse for wear. She settles into a chair across from him and folds her hands in her lap. He wants to assume that this is post-midterm stress, but something in her eyes tells him it isn’t the case.

She brightens a little bit when Lucky hops into her lap and makes herself comfortable, laying her large head flat on Kate’s knee.

“Hey. What’s goin’ on, kid?” He shoves his palms into his eyes, strained by all this reading in the candlelight. When he leans back in his chair, his spine crackles both uncomfortably and amazingly pleasantly. “Isn’t it late?”

“Yeah,” Kate says shortly, and when he removes his hands from his face, she’s staring down at the cat, her fingers in Lucky’s fur. “I can’t sleep.”

His eyes flicker to the tacky owl clock Natasha helped him charm to the wall. She’s risked being caught out of bed by the prefects at this ungodly hour, so whether or not she’s willing to be forthright with it, whatever is keeping her up has to be important. “Is everything okay?”

“The Yule Ball is coming up,” she blurts out, staring at the wall over his shoulder. “I’ve never properly shopped for a dress before, and Mum keeps asking if I’ve got one yet, and if I don’t she’s going to come to one of our Hogsmeade weekends and utterly embarrass the shit out of me in front of everyone in my year.” She swallows hard, and if his sleep deprivation isn’t to be blamed, she has the hints of tears in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Uncle Clint.”

Something in his stomach sinks. He wants to tell her he’s never done anything like this before, that he’s fine dealing with kids, but never with his own flesh and blood. But that isn’t what she needs. “Do you want me to meet you there? I might not be the best to ask for a feminine touch, but…”

“I don’t mind all that...I just…” Lucky hops off her lap, giving her the opportunity to twist her hands uncomfortably. “I don’t have a lot of friends, Uncle C, and I just want someone to be there with me while I figure it out...I know I might get some odd looks because I’m...trans, you know, but I just don’t want anyone to…”

“I get you,” he says softly, setting down his quill at last. “I can meet you there. But, seeing as I’m not exactly fashion-forward, or if you need help with a zipper or something, is it okay with you if I bring someone who can help with the whole style part? Maybe Professor Lewis?”

Her cheeks go a little pink, but the hints of a smile tug on her face anyway. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” She gets up, flattening her palms against her robes. “Thank you, Uncle C. Erm...do you mind not telling anyone else about this? Apart from Professor Lewis, I mean?”

He matches her smile, stretching out his back as he gets to his feet as well to walk her back to her dormitory. “You got it, kid.”

Darcy says yes to the trip to Hogsmeade, on the one condition that the first round of firewhiskey at the Three Broomsticks is on him afterwards. It’s a condition he’s fine with, but for some reason something inside him goes a little funny when she seals the conversation with, “Alright, then. It’s a date.”

(Not a real date, of course, he convinces himself after a good two hours of thrashing around in his bed that night, trying to think about it as anything other than a date, trying to think of anything but all the embarrassing things he’s done on dates, and all the ways he will probably fuck this up. They’re probably meeting a few of the other teachers there anyway, definitely not a real date.)

On Saturday morning, she meets him outside of his office, looking perfectly un-wizardly in her favorite chunky purple sweater, jeans, and boots. His heart does a couple of flips when she flashes that smile of hers, and about a dozen more when she pulls him into a hug, smelling already like Christmas, a few stray pine needles freckling the messy ponytail at the top of her head.

“You’re such a Herbology teacher,” he teases, slinging his bag over his shoulder. If he has any luck, he’ll be able to pick up a few Christmas presents over this trip, without tipping off Darcy to his plans. (He’s trying to surprise her, and she can’t know about anything he buys for Nat or Steve or Bruce because she’s the worst ever at keeping secrets.)

“I wish I could say the same about you as a Defense teacher,” she retorts smoothly, stopping in front of the ugly statue a few yards down from his office, slipping her wand out of her jeans. The tip of her wand touches the witch statue’s high marble hump-back, and she says with confidence,  _ “Dissendium.” _

He tries not to look too impressed when the statue opens up its hump to a shiny silver slide leading downward into darkness. “How the hell do you - ?”

“I got into my share of shenanigans as a student.” She sets her foot into the statue’s knee, climbing up to settle herself on the slide. “You coming?”

Clint feels like a teenager again, only a bit larger and with much clunkier joints, as he seats himself behind her, panickedly grabbing onto her waist when she pitches them forward, down into the darkness.

The ride isn’t long but she giggles the whole way down, and the sound of her laugh makes him smile the whole way down, too. The tunnel spits them out onto a plain-looking floorboard at the mouth of what appears to be a cellar. When Darcy straightens up, and Clint shoves his hands back in his pockets, she makes the ‘shushing’ motion at him, peeking around the corners of the nearest shelves to make sure they won’t be caught heading for the stairs to the cellar door.

She peeks her head out first, tugging on his shirt to signal him to follow.

Honeydukes is already bustling with life, the din of students laughing and shouting and placing their orders a perfect cover for Clint and Darcy to slip unnoticed through the sweets shop and into the snowy Hogsmeade streets.

“How many passageways  _ are _ there from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade?” he asks, pulling his jacket in closer.

She shrugs, eyes flickering down to her watch. “Plenty of secret ones, I’m sure. When I went here I mostly hung round the older students, so when they all got Hogsmeade privileges, I got really tired of having to lurk around the castle by myself. It was actually Nat who told me about the witch passage, but I know there are at least two or three other ones that Hill won’t tell me about.”

He shakes his head at her with a grin. “Professor Lewis, breaking the rules. Whatever would your most dedicated students say?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’d be delighted. Delighted or  _ highly _ disappointed.” She loops her arm through his, and leads him down the cobblestone, away from the crowds of Honeydukes. “Come on. It’s five minutes until ten, and I told Kate we’d try to be a bit early.”

That surprises him a little, but it shouldn’t; he doesn’t know much about who Kate really runs with, or how much she trusts the teachers who aren’t related to her by blood. Darcy’s a warm spirit, and every time he’s seen her with the kids, they all seem to love her. “I feel like kind of an asshole uncle, that I don’t know my niece very well.”

“You told me you had no idea you even had a niece until September. I do have a little bit of an unfair advantage, teaching her the last five years.” His face must not show any change, because Darcy softens a little, rubbing at his arm. “She’s a good kid, Clint. A little rough around the edges, and not exactly the warmest and fuzziest kid, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders. For a teenager, anyway.”

“I know,” he sighs, pushing a hand back through his hair. “I just wish we’d had more time to get to know each other before technically living under the same roof.”

“I don’t know if that would’ve made it easier for her.” She looks up at him with creased brows, a combination of love and gentle concern in her voice. “She only just came out at the end of last year, and I know it was a difficult transition for her. A few of her friends were...not exactly welcoming about it all. They’d known her differently the last few years, and I think she sort of felt like...she’d changed on them. Blindsided them or something.”

“Seriously?”

She shrugs again, worrying her bottom lip with a sliver of teeth. “I think she sort of likes that you’ve  _ only _ gotten to know her as Kate. You didn’t have any expectations that she could feel like she’d let down. And it seems like she trusts you enough to bring you dress shopping with her  _ first _ favorite teacher, at least.”

There’s a playful barb to her last words, her elbow gently digging into his ribs. Darcy’s trying to lighten the mood, maybe to keep him from overthinking it himself, maybe to prime him to an experience that none of them can have firm expectations for. It works enough (granted, his spirits have lifted in general with her at his side), and at last when they reach the only shop around Hogsmeade that sells dress robes, he holds the door open for her, reminding himself to be an uncle for Kate, first and foremost.

Kate is already waiting for them near the fitting rooms, a small rainbow of dresses hung up by the slatted doors. She gets her feet under her when she spots them across the shop, wringing her hands.

“Hi,” she says abruptly, without making eye contact with either of them. “I’ll just...get started then, shall I?”

“You’ve already picked some things out?” Darcy asks, her voice slow and soothing, making her way toward the selections hung on the door. “You know what you’re looking for?”

Kate swallows. “Honestly? Not at all.”

“That’s okay. Why don’t you try on these two first, and then we can think about what you like or don’t like about them to find the one that fits you perfectly?” From Kate’s menagerie of choices, Darcy holds out two very different dresses: one short black one with long sleeves and alternating black-and-silver tassels, and one longer red one, sleeveless, with a skirt that flares out at the hips and an intricate looking lace design on the top. Clint is severely out of his element here, but the smile that lights up his niece’s face is worth it.

A small parade of dresses makes its way from the shopping racks to the hook outside Kate’s room to her and back. He thinks she looks fine in all of them and knows better than to say that out loud. But eventually, Kate stands in front of them in a belted black and purple dress that looks like it’s been made for her, finally smiling at herself in the mirror.

“What do you think, Kate?” Darcy prompts, leaning forward in her seat. “Is this the one?”

Something merry and bright fills up his chest as he watches Kate nod her head up and down, a grin splitting her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

While she returns into the dressing room, he gets up as surreptitiously as he can, giving Darcy the feeble excuse that he’s finding a bathroom, and makes his way back to the front of the shop to push Galleons into the shopkeep’s hand for Kate’s dress and a few other things.

She frowns at him when she goes to pay for it a few moments later, but before they can make their way back outside to where anyone could see them, Kate reluctantly wraps an arm around him. “Thank you, Uncle C.”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

He can tell that she’s fighting the urge to roll her eyes at him calling her kid, but she takes her carefully wrapped package anyway, thanks him again, and ducks out of the shop ahead of him, likely as not to be seen with her uncle in public any more than she needs to be. Still, he smiles after Kate, almost unaware of Darcy coming to his side when the door jingles shut behind her.

“You alright there, Uncle C?” she teases him softly, resting a hand on his shoulder. It might be the season, might be the feeling of finally having family so close, but something inside him wants to cover her hand with his and sweep her into his arms.

“Never been better.” Instead, he offers his own hand palm-up to her. “C’mon. Let’s go see a guy about a firewhiskey.”

He keeps his messenger bag close to his opposite side and tries his best not to sweat excessively with Darcy’s hand in his as they make their way toward the Three Broomsticks.

Bucky, who runs the pub, shouts his hello when they bustle through the door, grinning at them over the heads of damn near every student they know passing butterbeers around. Steve, Natasha, and Bruce are all seated around the bar, and look like they’ve been waiting for them this whole time. Darcy squeezes his hand before she steers them toward the open seats on Steve’s side.

“Hey,” Steve says first, voice colored with surprise. “Happy Saturday.”

Natasha, on the other hand, wears a smirk with that unwavering look of knowledge that never fails to put a little fear in Clint. And her students. “Happy Saturday indeed. Come on, then, pull up a seat - what have you two been up to this fine morning?”

“Christmas shopping,” Darcy says smoothly, before Clint gets a chance to open his mouth. She slides onto the barstool on Clint’s side, letting him take the spot between her and Steve. “Did a bit of looking for dress robes for the Yule Ball.”

“Really?” Bruce asks, leaning forward so he can make eye contact with both of them. Bucky stops at their end of the bar, wordlessly pouring out another round of firewhiskey shots, and returns Steve’s smile when their gazes meet. “You’re planning on going this year?”

“I never plan on  _ not _ going,” she insists, lifting shot glass once Clint has his in hand. “This year is just the first that I actively want to go.”

“Interesting.” Before she downs her firewhiskey, Natasha raises her glass into the air, her eyes never leaving Clint’s. “Well, in celebration of Darcy’s first Yule Ball and Clint’s first Christmas at Hogwarts, I’d like to make a toast. To good friends and better drinks.”

Darcy is warm, her elbow brushing his side as she raises her glass for the toast as well.

“Hear, hear!”

* * *

“You look really beautiful.”

Kate smiles in spite of herself, her cheeks filling with color. She has her hair tied back, large earrings accentuating the graceful slope of her neck. In all of the four months that Clint’s known her, it feels like his niece has grown up a lot.

“Thanks, Uncle C. You look nice, too, I guess.”

He shrugs. He’s never been much for dress robes, usually more fond of the regular Muggle t-shirts and jeans, but these events are a nice excuse to get away from grading for the night.

Tonight is different, though. Tonight he’s walking into the Yule Ball with Darcy, dancing with her, drinking eggnog and eating dinner with her. Since the Hogsmeade trip, they haven’t been able to spend much time together outside of grading midterms and setting up lesson plans for the New Year, but the sparse time he has been able to spend with her is filled with soft and too-quickly-ended hand touches, lingering smiles, her eyes turning toward him with something...golden in them.

Clint lets Kate run off to meet a few new friends, a small gaggle of girls from Ravenclaw, and makes his way down from the third floor toward the kitchens, increasingly indecisive with what to do with his hands, his hair, his pocket watch. Eventually he finds himself in front of the door to her office, pats down the cowlick that likes to spring up against any amount of gel he’s ever used to slick it down, and knocks.

“Hey.”

It swings open to reveal her, not in her usual boots and sweater or even the dark-and-yellow, slightly glittering Head of Hufflepuff House robe that she wears to all the big school events, but in a form fitting black and red dress, dark hair falling in loose waves down her creamy skin. Her glasses sit at the crown of her head, and her makeup is mostly subdued except for the ruby lipstick painted across her mouth.

Is this what it’s like to die? His throat seeming to swell a little and his palms going into a cool sweat, the sound of his heart pounding loud and clear in his ears?

“Stop it,” she breathe-laughs, eyes on the ground behind him. He feels his face go hot and averts his gaze, too, finally smiling as well. “Come in - I wanna do a shot with you before we head down into the rabble.”

“You trying to liquor me up before we go hang out with all our students? Professor  _ Lewis _ .”

“Can you blame me?” He realizes as he steps through the door that he’s never been in her office before; in some weird way, it’s exactly like her. Tapestries on almost every wall, in every color and of every subject. Plants hanging from the ceiling, a few of them purring quietly in the cool night air. A gramophone playing old music in the corner on one side of her four-poster, and, on the nightstand on the other side, a decanter of golden liquid surrounded by framed photos of her with Natasha and Steve, and a wide shot of what appears to be her family, all dark-haired and blue-eyed like her.

“This place is…” he trails off, already feeling a little drunk without one drop of liquor passing his lips.

“I know,” she says, almost apologetically, and waves her wand to pile the few stray clothes she has on the floor into her hamper. “I don’t tend to have a lot of people over, my place is kind of…”

“Personal.” She nods, twirling a piece of her hair between her fingers. “Yeah. I see how that could feel. But your place, it’s...reminds me of you a lot.”

“Yeah?” The smile that graces her lips makes his chest go all...warm and gross. Her hair covers her eyes while she goes to pour them both a glass of whatever’s in the decanter. “Yours reminds me of you, too. With Lucky and all.”

“My one-eyed furball of a kneazle reminds you of me? Cool.” He lowers his eyes as well, taking the glass when it’s offered. “Thank you.”

“She’s a special kneazle,” Darcy says. Her fingers brush his as she lets go of the glass, but she stays close. Her eyes are especially blue tonight, offset by the blood-red of her pout. “And I guess you’re a pretty special wizard, Professor Barton.”

“I never got to thank you for coming with me to help Kate,” he blurts, his voice suddenly lower than he’d intended it. He feels his hand slip into his pocket, a small flurry breaking out above them, and fingers the box that he’d managed to buy from the dress shop clerk without her seeing. “And I wanted to say ‘Merry Christmas.’”

“I’m plying you with alcohol, you’re plying me with gifts...at this rate we’ll never make it to the Yule Ball.” Her eyes shine with their usual mischief, but she takes the box from him, setting down her drink. When she opens it, the small chunk of amber smiles back at her, dangling innocently from the delicate gold strand of the necklace he’s picked for her. “Clint, this is - Jesus, this is  _ beautiful _ . You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to.” 

She lifts it from its cushion, gently offering him the chain. “Help me a bit?”

He wills his hands steady opening and closing the clasp and brushes a snowflake away from her bare skin. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I - ”

“Clint,” Darcy says, turning towards him, her hands flat on his lapel. “It’s beautiful. And I love it.”

But she’s not looking at the necklace. No, she’s looking right at him now, a tender smile pulling on those perfect lips, closing her hands around his collar.

“I’m glad you like it.” His voice feels a million miles away, but her in his arms, his grasp on her waist, it’s all right in front of him. “Darcy, I…”

He doesn’t have time to figure out what his mouth is trying to say before she’s slanting her lips over his, before his eyes are falling shut, before she’s pressed up against him with her hands in his hair, kissing him for the first time.

Three, he thinks, somewhere in the back of his head. Three beautiful, perfect surprises this year. And all of them worth it.


End file.
